


tiny fighter

by third



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Neighbors, Tiny Fighter Renjun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 11:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21373579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/third/pseuds/third
Summary: Renjun’s a few grades away from the honour roll, he’s polite to teachers and other students, his artwork is displayed in the foyer of the school building, and people vouch and cover for him.All the school nurses also know Renjun by name, and he’s most probably picked a fight with over a quarter of the juniors and seniors combined.Or: Yukhei isn’t a fighter but he tries for Renjun anyway.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 9
Kudos: 242





	tiny fighter

Yukhei is all limbs. In theory, he would be a great fighter; he has the muscle and the strength for it and the genetics to look tough enough to loom and intimidate. In practice, Yukhei can probably manage one punch before tripping over himself in the resulting kerfuffle.

Renjun thinks he lacks the determination. 

His father used to take them both out to their backyard, boxing gloves and mitts for all of them in a bag hanging over his shoulder. Renjun—twelve and picked on for his looks—had taken to the lessons with a seriousness he usually saved for difficult math problems or trying to convince his mother to let him sleep over at Yukhei’s house for the fourth night in a row. Yukhei—growing nicely into his own skin and with burgeoning popularity—messed around, mimicking boxing moves from movies to an over-exaggerated tee. 

Renjun continued the lessons well into his mid-teens—years after Yukhei got bored and spent the lesson time sitting on the grass next to Renjun and his father, cheering Renjun on whenever he got a hit in.

The lessons became useful when Renjun followed Yukhei into high school. He grew tired of letting comments slide off him without action, and while he tried to be a model student, he spent most of his free time in the hidden area behind the school's drama room fighting anyone who tried him.

Yukhei’s uselessness in fighting also became apparent. The one time Yukhei tried stepping into one of Renjun’s fights—mostly out of a sense of misplaced guilt and fault—Renjun broke his arm, Yukhei had somehow got more hits to himself than attempted hits out, and they both got in trouble from the school and their parents, though being grounded for a month hit harder than a week of detention ever would. 

After the mess of the situation, Renjun had Yukhei promise two things: 1) Yukhei was never to get involved in fights and 2) Yukhei was never to get involved in _Renjun’s_ fights. 

Which is why when Renjun’s off sick from school, switching between scrolling through social media and watching ASMR videos, and gets a text message from Donghyuck that reads: _ur puppy’s in the doghouse for fighting_, his first thought is _what the fuck?_

Renjun sees from his window when Yukhei’s mother’s car pulls up in their driveway next door. Yukhei exits the car looking worse for wear, with his mother steamrolling ahead through the front door without even looking at him. Yukhei seems to deliberate outside, taking his time before he follows his mother and shuts the door. Renjun waits a courtesy hour for any reaming Yukhei’s mother is likely to give Yukhei before he goes over to do the same. 

Yukhei’s mother is expecting him. “He’s in his room,” she says, after Renjun knocks on the front door, lets himself in, and heads to the kitchen to say his greetings before he finds Yukhei. She’s slicing apples into rabbit ears on the kitchen counter, a habit she hasn’t changed even after the two of them stopped the (outwardly) excitement over fruit animals, and she sets them on a plate before she hands them to him. 

There was a time earlier in the year when they would find ways to climb through each other’s bedroom windows to avoid any unnecessary courtesies but that stopped the moment both of their mothers sat them down in the living room of Renjun’s house with a firm rule to keep their bedroom doors open when they visited each other and two boxes of condoms awkwardly sitting on the coffee table with a magnetic field so strong Renjun couldn’t help but glance at them constantly. Both Renjun and Yukhei firmly denied everything, but their mothers shared a silent conversation in the way that best friends do, and they were forced to take the condoms anyway, though the open door rule never stuck.

Greetings are nothing in comparison now, and it would be a lie to say that Renjun doesn’t like the way Yukhei’s mother dotes on him.

“He said to give these to you before you go up.” She holds out a plastic bag of snacks and drinks filled with Renjun’s favourites. Renjun carefully balances the fruit plate in one hand, takes a juice box out of the bag, and hangs the bag over his free wrist. “Sometimes I feel like he’s more afraid of you than me.”

Renjun smiles at that. “He’d be stupid to even consider it,” Renjun says. “I couldn’t hold a candle to you at all, Auntie.” 

She laughs at him, smitten, before telling him to go on up.

Renjun’s sipping on the juice box when he opens the door to Yukhei’s room with one polite knock. He leaves the plate of apples on top of the textbooks piled on Yukhei’s desk and the bag of snacks on his desk chair.

Yukhei’s sitting on his bed with his back leaning against the wall. His eyes were closed when Renjun first walked in, but they’re open now, watching Renjun’s movements. Yukhei’s left eye is swollen, the start of a bruise beginning to form, and he has bandaids on his cheek and all over his knuckles. Renjun sits cross-legged next to him on the bed, and his initial anger at Yukhei’s carelessness is lost when Yukhei tries to sit up and winces at the movement. 

“Let me see.” Renjun pulls at the edge of Yukhei’s shirt. Yukhei accommodates and lifts his hem up to his neck—there are bruises forming all over his chest. Renjun presses his fingers lightly over a particularly bad one by his ribs, and Yukhei flinches. “Idiot,” he says.

“You should’ve seen the other guy,” Yukhei says, grinning. It pulls at the cut on his bottom lip, and he winces. Renjun shakes his head at him before calling Yukhei out on his lie. 

Renjun technically has a doctor’s certificate for another day off even though he’s feeling better already.

He spends the day with Yukhei who’s been suspended for the rest of the week—not for fighting but for talking back to a teacher after being told to stop. 

“Rookie move,” Renjun says at this, but Yukhei just shrugs. 

They play cards and video games in their pyjamas. Eventually, they settle for Mario Kart and Yukhei blames his sore wrist for all his losses. Renjun won’t admit it, but he starts going easy on Yukhei after that. It reminds Renjun of the early days of his friendship, back when it was just the two of them and their breaks weren’t filled with studying for exams that could make or break their lives, struggling to catch up with everyone and working part-time jobs to pay for said catch ups. 

After Renjun’s fifth win, he pauses the game before the next race starts, turns to Yukhei and asks, “Are you going to tell me what he said?”

He’d tried to ask the day before, and he got part of the story but not all of it: Yukhei’s fight was with Minho, it was over locker room talk, Minho’s got it in for him ever since last year, Yukhei got offended, and he doesn’t want to talk about it.

Yukhei unpauses the game and uses it to get a head start. It doesn’t matter when his character, Princess Peach, ends up crashing into a wall and falling into eighth place anyway. His lips are a tight line. He won’t look at Renjun. “No,” he says softly. 

Two days after Renjun’s return to school is when Minho is set to come back too. 

Yukhei usually wakes up late on days off of school, but he’d come over particularly early, ate a bowl of cereal at Renjun’s dining table, said goodbye to Renjun’s parents as they left for work and made Renjun promise not to do anything stupid.

“Why would I?” Renjun had said, and then when Yukhei stared at him dubiously and said that wasn’t actually promising anything, said, “Yes, _fine._”

“Still going to do something stupid?” Donghyuck asks that morning. They’re sitting on the benches outside, partially for fresh air before they’re trapped within school walls for the majority of the daytime and partially because it’s the best location to watch the students entering the school.

“It’s not stupid,” Renjun says, even though when he promised Yukhei he had his fingers crossed underneath the table. “I just want to know what actually happened.”

Renjun spent the last two days trying to figure out why Yukhei got into a fight. It isn’t his type of thing and it has Renjun itching with the need to figure it out. Donghyuck is the best source of gossip but the only new thing the rumours are saying is that Yukhei pulled the first punch. 

No one’s spilling the beans on what was actually said. 

“I’m letting you know this is a bad idea,” Donghyuck says, because he likes to be right. “And also that Minho just walked through the gates and looks like he’s headed to his locker,” Donghyuck continues, because he also likes the drama. 

“Thanks,” Renjun says, jumping off the bench and making his way into the building. 

Minho’s one of the later students to arrive, so by the time Renjun gets to the area where most of the senior lockers are, the hallways are already thinning with students heading to class. Minho doesn’t look surprised to see him, a resigned and tired look marring his expression.

“I’m sorry,” Minho says when Renjun stops right in front of him. “I shouldn’t have said that about you. Yukhei was getting on my nerves and I knew that it would push his buttons—”

Renjun cuts him off. “What did you say about me?”

Minho’s expression changes to one of surprise. “You don’t know?”

“I don’t.” There’s a thrum of adrenaline coursing through him. His heart is beating faster. He already knows he’s not going to like this. “What did you say about me?” Renjun repeats. 

“Maybe it’s better if you don’t—”

“What did you say?”

Minho sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. Renjun tracks the movements and sees the actuality of Yukhei’s lie—there’s a bandaid on Minho’s cheek and a cut on his lip, but otherwise he doesn’t look that bad. Meanwhile, the bruises on Yukhei’s eye and ribs have yet to fade into yellow. It makes Renjun’s blood boil. He waits for Minho to speak. 

“I said,” Minho starts, not making eye contact with Renjun, “I know why Yukhei keeps you around because you’re such an easy lay.”

“I see,” Renjun says. 

Minho winces. “I know nothing happened between us, but it was just to rile Yukhei up—”

“Don’t touch Yukhei again,” Renjun says, and then he takes a deep breath in and then punches Minho in the face. 

Administration doesn’t know what to do with Renjun. 

He’s a few grades away from the honour roll, he’s polite to teachers and other students, his artwork is displayed in the foyer of the school building, and people vouch and cover for him—he’s well-liked. 

All the school nurses also know him by name, and he’s most probably picked a fight with over a quarter of the juniors and seniors combined. 

He spends most of the day in the school office, asking the school secretary about her latest trip abroad. They end up calling his mother but only to update her about the situation. He gets two weeks of lunchtime and after school detentions and the nurse clucks at him for getting into another fight when she bandages his hand.

Donghyuck’s waiting for him by the front gates after his detention ends. They usually only go home together when Renjun has detention—Donghyuck usually likes to spend time at the library after school flirting with the awkward student library assistant, and when Renjun doesn’t have to stay back at school, he always goes home with Yukhei.

“Vindictive boyfriend gets revenge?” Donghyuck says, standing from where he was crouched on the floor. He’s acting nonchalant about what happened but when Renjun secretly texted him what Minho said during detention, knowing that Donghyuck was dying to find out, Donghyuck had only sent back, _I’ll end him_. Renjun is used to physical damage but what Donghyuck does is on a whole other level. “I expected you to be smarter than this.”

“Not boyfriends,” Renjun corrects, rolling his eyes. It’s been a longstanding correction—the first time Donghyuck met Yukhei, he’d turned to Renjun and asked “Boyfriend?” to which Renjun and Yukhei both blushed and adamantly refused. Over time, Donghyuck hasn’t changed how he addresses them and Renjun has become less affected. 

Donghyuck stares at him with disbelief. He flicks Renjun on the forehead before walking in the direction of their houses. “That’s what makes it dumb,” he says.

Yukhei’s mother tsks at him when Renjun comes over to their house with his hand bandaged. He’d went straight home and dealt with his parents’ disappointment but news about Yukhei’s involvement in the fight travelled to even them, so when he asked if he could go over to Yukhei’s house they agreed.

“Your bandage is falling off,” Yukhei’s mother says. “Come here.”

Renjun didn’t even notice. He sits on their plush living room couch and waits while she grabs their first aid kit. Renjun believes she uses their first aid kit on him more than anyone in the actual Wong household. He tells her as much when she returns, and she laughs, agreeing.

“I used to think that out of the two of you Yukhei would get into more fights,” she says, unwrapping the nurse’s work and replacing it with a new bandage. “Imagine my surprise the first time I had to patch you up.” 

Renjun shrugs, apologetic, but she just waves him off. “I don’t mind it,” she says, and then works quietly until she finishes tying the bandage off. She turns his hand gently between her own, double-checking her handiwork. When Renjun first started getting into fights, he learnt to take care of himself from watching her. “He’s hiding from you, you know.” Renjun’s hand in still in hers, and it should be awkward but it feels nice. She smiles at him like she knows his thoughts. “I don’t know what was said or what happened, but I know it affected him a lot. He’s not really one for fights, is he?”

Renjun laughs, and shakes his head. “Definitely not,” he says, and then more soberly, “I’ll fix it.”

“I know you will,” she says, packing away the first aid kit and then standing. “He’s hiding but I trust you know where to find him.”

The sun is setting by the time Renjun gets there, the playground seemingly empty except for the dim light that illuminates the inside of the large, green playground pipe. 

He surveys their childhood meeting spot and notes the changes: there’s rust forming on the chains of the swings, what used to be a bright red slide has faded into a duller well-used maroon, and the patch of flowers they helped plant as a community initiative have bloomed into long winding stems with petals of all colours overlapping each other. 

Yukhei must turn off his phone light when he hears Renjun coming, but Renjun still wiggles his way inside. Yukhei as a child had fit well inside here; Yukhei on the cusp of adulthood is a tangle of limbs, a misshaped looking pretzel. Even for Renjun it’s squishy, but he settles as comfortably as he can by Yukhei’s side.

His fingers trace the words Yukhei had etched into the plastic ten years ago. _Yukhei and Renjun,_ still there after all this time.

“You’re hiding from me,” Renjun says, feeling the weight of Yukhei’s eyes on him. When he looks up, Yukhei looks away.

“Your mom was sad,” Yukhei says instead, deflecting. Through Yukhei’s side of the pipe, Renjun can see the sky turning into pinks and purples and blues. “She thought you had stopped with the fights.”

“You should stop listening in on their conversations,” Renjun chides. “I’ll stop fighting when there’s no reason to anymore.”

There’s silence and then: “Mark said you found out what Minho said.”

Renjun wonders for a moment how Mark would know, but then again he wouldn’t put it past Donghyuck to move his flirting in the library after school to flirting over the phone via text messages. 

“You broke our two promises,” Renjun replies. 

Yukhei scoffs. “Is it really your fight when what he said was a jab at me?”

“It was more offensive to me,” Renjun says. It’s still there—this quiet confusion about why Yukhei lashed out. “You’re my best friend, but this isn’t the worst insult you’ve heard about me. People have spread worse lies.”

“Lies?” Yukhei asks, and Renjun doesn’t know why that’s what he focuses on.

“Yes?” Renjun says in question. His eyes narrow. “Did you think I was an easy lay?”

“No, of course not,” Yukhei splutters. “But he said some stuff about knowing—about Jaemin’s party—” he cuts off, voice cracking, “and how you guys—”

“No,” Renjun says. He remembers that party. Yukhei had his arm glued around Yuqi all night. Renjun, ignoring why his stomach felt unsettled, had plied himself with alcohol despite Donghyuck’s insistence he stopped. He ended up in an upstairs bedroom with Minho. They kissed, once, before Renjun pushed him away and said he couldn’t. “We didn’t do anything,” he continues. “I mean, we kissed, but—it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” Yukhei says, and he’s finally looking at Renjun. There’s something desperate in his expression. It’s full of unwanted hope, frustration and a little bit of self-hatred. It’s familiar. “You have to know.”

Renjun’s seen that expression mirrored in himself, which—can’t be true. Not for Yukhei. Yukhei opened his box of condoms first. Renjun found them in Yukhei’s drawer when he was looking for the sweater he left the last night he slept over and felt sick in his stomach. His own box was untouched, hidden in a bag under his bed. Renjun had enough self-worth not to count how many were left, and he spent the two weeks after avoiding Yukhei and spending lunches in the art room, ignoring the way his chest felt tight and clenched. 

“Yukhei,” Renjun says, needing to hear it, “why did you punch Minho?”

“I couldn’t stand it,” Yukhei admits. He runs his fingers through his hair, before leaning back against the curved wall. The sun is on its last breath and Yukhei is silhouetted against its dimming light. “Did you think I wanted to hear about how you were so eager—” Yukhei stops. Renjun can barely make his expression, but it’s there. Yukhei’s eyes are shut tight as if in pain. 

“He said he knew it would rile you up.”

Yukhei laughs. “Everyone knows,” he says, self-deprecating. “I thought you did too.”

“I didn’t,” Renjun says.

Yukhei looks at him. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Renjun says, heart beating out of the chest, “because if I knew, I would have done this.” He kisses Yukhei then, twisting himself in the tight space and ignoring the pain in his lower back from the angle. Yukhei kisses him back, hand reaching out and into Renjun’s hair, holding him in place.

They pull apart and breathe into each other’s spaces. Renjun can’t help but smile when Yukhei’s eyes dart down to his mouth, and he presses another quick kiss there. “I didn’t know,” Yukhei says, almost reverent.

“Well,” Renjun says, pressing one more kiss to Yukhei’s lips, “I guess we’re both idiots.”

On the way home, Yukhei stops to kiss Renjun three times.

When he presses Renjun up against a tree to steal a few more kisses for the fourth, right underneath the streetlight in front of the house of their neighbourhood’s biggest gossip, Renjun gently pushes him away. “Stop,” he says, laughing when Yukhei tries to chase his lips. “The neighbours will see.”

“It’s nothing they didn’t think they already knew,” Yukhei says, but he steps back into the street and stretches his arms wide. It’s late now. The moon is out and bright, and their backs are aching from trying to make up lost time in a playground pipe the two of them have outgrown. 

“I feel like a lot of people knew before us,” Renjun says, reflecting. “Donghyuck is going to be an absolute pain.”

Yukhei groans. “Our _moms_ are going to be a pain.” 

It’s sort of strange to unify the Yukhei he’s grown up with, whose height is marked on Renjun’s bedroom wall alongside his own, the space between twelve and thirteen blank because Renjun was upset at their height difference and Yukhei had spent the remaining year trying to be as small as possible, to the Yukhei who spent the last four minutes kissing Renjun breathless.

Then Yukhei extends a hand out to Renjun, grins wide at him with the same boyish grin from eight to twelve to now, says, “Totally worth it though,” and Renjun doesn’t think it’s that strange at all.

“Yeah,” Renjun agrees, taking Yukhei’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and pulling him in the direction home. “It’s worth it.”

In the morning, Renjun wakes up to his mother cooking him breakfast. 

Renjun isn’t one to turn away food, so he sits down at the table and makes a grab at one of the savoury pancakes already sitting warm in the middle of the table.

“Congratulations,” his mother says when she’s done, putting a plateful down in front of him. “I always knew you two would end up together.” She isn’t hiding her grin. Renjun knows this is just the start to the teasing. 

“Did Auntie tell you?” Renjun asks suspiciously, taking another pancake and stuffing it into his mouth. 

“No,” his mom says, smiling. “Yukhei came over bright and early just to let us know.”

Renjun puts his food down. He takes out his phone, opens his chat with Yukhei and messages, _I can’t believe you told my mom about us before I did???_

Yukhei’s reply is less than two seconds later: _sry I was too excited!! auntie’s been rooting for us!! I had to let her know!!_ And then a minute later, _I’ll make it up to you promise!!_

(They open Renjun’s box of condoms a few weeks later and, yeah, Yukhei definitely keeps this promise.)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i haven't written for the better half of the year so i'm trying to get back in the groove of things by finishing off old plot bunnies (finishing off i say, but i basically rewrote the whole thing from scratch). 
> 
> i hope you liked it! you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/falserecall) or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/thursday) ♡


End file.
